Uploaded June 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 hours ago

---

We look at the new May 2025 study:

This 2025 Study (working paper) "Divorce, Family Arrangements, and Children’s Adult Outcomes" by ANDREW C. JOHNSTON, MAGGIE R. JONES, AND NOLAN G. POPE (U.S. Census Bureau) has been touted by marriage-at-any-cost organizations as showing terrible damage to children of divorce, claiming that they will likely have a teen pregnancy, be incarcerated, and experience increased mortality before age 25.

But that's not what this study (working paper) shows, despite the sensationalism in the abstract.

Let's walk through the actual numbers behind the study.

1:35 - First, let's start with scare tactics and false warnings about divorce used by marriage-at-any-cost organizations, religious leader, and Christian book authors. We were always told us that divorce destroyed kids.
1:50 - We were (incorrectly) told our children would experience teen pregnancy, trouble with the law resulting in incarceration, and they would die young due to dangerous behavior.
2:31 - THE STUDY: Teen pregnancy (teen live birth) rates are not as high as we were told.
3:52 - THE STUDY: Incarceration rates are not as high as we were told.
5:20 - THE STUDY: Early mortality rates are not as high as we were told.
6:00 - Reject the stigma of divorce, because these data simply don't prove that divorce universally destroys kids.

Thirty years ago, when I told my Bible study leader, with tears in my eyes, that I was getting a divorce, she berated me and told me that I didn't care about my children and their horrible outcomes after divorce. SHE WAS WRONG.

First, I did care about my children. I had cried many nights and I had weighed the decision for years. She had no idea of what I had been through.

Second, she wasn't correct. The truth is that children of divorce are UNLIKELY to experience teen pregnancy, incarceration, or early mortality.

That's what this new 2025 Study (working paper) Divorce, Family Arrangements, and Children’s Adult Outcomes shows. It was published in
May 2025 and Written by ANDREW C. JOHNSTON, MAGGIE R. JONES, AND NOLAN G. POPE